Monday, 2 February 2015

The leadership of International Society for Civil Liberties
& the Rule of Law wishes to reject strongly, the repeated promises by
the Independent National Electoral Commission to give Nigeria and Nigerians “free,
fair and credible elections” come February 14 and 28, 2015
respectively. Just yesterday, 1st February, 2015, INEC, while “extending”
the PVCs distribution for seven days (1st to 8th
February, 2015) repeated its hoax promises of delivering free, fair and
credible polls to Nigerians.

We wish to state unequivocally that shoddy preparations put in
place by INEC as well as the Commission’s gross incompetence, have robbed the
referenced polls in an unprecedented manner, of their freedom, credibility and
fairness. The referenced shoddy preparations range from poor, uneven and skewed
distribution of PVCs; delays in production of same; multiplicity of candidates
allowed by the Commission; high percentage of underage voters particularly
in the North; to roguish management of the National Register of Voters.

In the area of gross incompetence, millions of adult Nigerians
eligible to vote particularly in the South, were not captured as registered
voters. Same also led to massive “data loss and missing names” in the
Commission’s electoral register data. In the realm of same, 1, 543, 961 lost
their names randomly and arbitrarily as “double registrants” between November
2014 and January 13, 2015. There is also outdated “polling units system” retained
by the Commission; whereby the polling units created in 1996 by the military
and their grossly lopsidedness, are still in use. The mother of all is deepened
manifestation of bias and partiality by the headship of INEC; whereby there
appears a sustained and settled conspiracy to return the presidency of the
country to the North at all costs.

A typical case of shoddy preparation and gross incompetence
on the part of INEC for the referenced polls; is gross data inconsistencies.
For, instance, after the 2011 general voters’ registration exercise, INEC
arrived at “73.5million” as total number of adult Nigerians captured as
“registered voters”. The figure was subjected by the Commission to “automated
fingerprint identification system (AFIS)”, for the purpose of
elimination of double/multiple registrants, after which the figure came down to
“70, 383, 427”. This figure remained the Commission’s official figure as
Nigeria’s total registered voting population from 2011 to 2014. As a matter of
fact, as at September/October 2014, the figure was retained by INEC.

Suddenly, the Commission woke up on January 13, 2015 and told
Nigerians that the total number of registered voters in Nigeria stood at “68,
833, 476” and claimed that those names deleted numbering “1, 543, 961” were
“double registrants”. Funny enough, since 2011, the INEC’s total number of
registered voters in Nigeria remained “70, 383, 427” or stagnated. This is in
spite of all continuous voters’ registration exercises variously
carried out by INEC across the country, which ought to have increased the
registered voting population figure under reference.

Till date, INEC has adamantly refused to provide Nigerians with
State-by-State breakdown of the so called “double registrants” of 1, 543, 961,
which it magisterially and arbitrarily deleted in a twinkle of an eye as well
as same breakdown with respect to its new registered voting population of
“68, 833, 476”.

This leaves us with no other option than to hold that the deletion
is in furtherance of our earlier strong suspicion that “the PVCs distribution
and the entire management of the National Register of Voters regarding the
referenced polls are clearly skewed and laid in scientific/demographic
manipulations for ethno-religious reasons and strategic advantage.” If INEC
continues to withhold the referenced State-by-State breakdown as per the
deleted number of 1, 543, 961 registered voters, then we will also conclude
that greater percent of same was effected in the South to further cripple their
demographic/electoral numerical strength to the advantage of their Northern
counterparts during the referenced polls.

For Jega’s INEC hoax promises of “free, fair and credible polls”
to hold water, its PVCs distributed in the Northeast and the Northwest zones
should be forensically and thoroughly investigated. We suspect strongly and
un-apologetically that the so called “12, 794, 880 PVCs” distributed in the
Northwest zone and “6, 678, 148 PVCs” distributed in the troubled Northeast
zone as at January 27, 2015; are not in the right hands. We also
suspect deeply that the number of registered voters allocated to these two
zones is bogus and untenable. That the totality of PVCs distributed in the two
zones under reference comprising 13 States (19, 473, 028) far out-numbers those
of the entire South comprising 17 States (16, 996, 840) is shocking and deeply
disbelieving. That the PVCs distributed in war-stricken Northeast (6, 678, 148)
is much higher than those distributed in the Southwest (6, 403, 534) and
South-south (6, 214, 977) is a shocker of 2015 served on Nigerians by Jega’s
INEC.

Finally, we wish to further observe that the INEC’s hoax promises
under reference have been dealt a fatal blow by recent announcement of the
European Union Election Observers to the effect that they will not monitor
polls in the Northeast zone for security reasons. The express implication of
this is that “there may most likely be free for all electoral
manipulations” in the area using Emirs and District Heads’ palaces and
Mosques following thickened desperation to return presidency to the North.

Of all the so called “accredited domestic and foreign poll
observers”, only the EU Poll Observers are credible and acceptable to us. The
experiences gathered from the governorship poll of November 2013 in Anambra
State, Southeast Nigeria showed that greater number of the so called “domestic
poll observers” in Nigeria are hugely operating according to the whims and
caprices of mainstream “Southwest Political Engineers”, even till date.
The so called “continental and sub-continental poll observers” are still not in
tune with universal best practices in matters of poll monitoring, observation
and report.

Signed:

Emeka Umeagbalasi

Board Chairman, International Society for Civil Liberties &
the Rule of Law